ELECTION ROCK, CLARK'S ISLAND.
It is only a little way from the landing-place at Clark's Island to the venerable Watson mansion, seen embowered among trees as we approached.[206] The parent house was removed from its first situation, rather nearer the water than it now stands, and has incorporated with itself newer additions, till it is quite lost in the transformation it has undergone. The island is a charming spot, and the house a substantial, hospitable one. I did not like it the less because it was old, and seemed to carry me something nearer to the Pilgrims than any of the white band of houses I saw across the bay. Ducks, turkeys, geese, and fowls lived in good-fellowship together in the barn-yard, where were piled unseaworthy boats; and store of old lumber-drifts the sea had provided against the winter. The jaw-bone of a whale, that Mr. Watson said he had found stranded on the beach, and brought home on his back, lay bleaching in the front yard. I may have looked a trifle incredulous, for the hale old gentleman, turned, I should say, of three-score, drew himself up as if he would say, "Sir, I can do it again."
After showing us his family portraits, ancient furniture, and other heir-looms, our host told us how Sir Edmund Andros had tried to dispossess his ancestors. My companion and myself then took the path leading to Election Rock, that owes its name, doubtless, to some local event. It is a large boulder, about twelve feet high, on the highest point of the island. Two of its faces are precipitous, while the western side offers an easy ascent. At the instance of the Pilgrim Society, the following words, from "Mourt's Relation," have been graven on its face:
"On the
Sabboth Day
wee rested.
20 December,
1620."